


平果 | peace, fruit

by virdant



Series: 吃飽了嗎? | Have you eaten your fill? [8]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Food, Food as a Metaphor for Love, Gen, Healing, Jedi, Jedi Culture, Jedi Culture Respected, Sad Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:34:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26118091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/virdant/pseuds/virdant
Summary: As initiates, they would march into the Halls with their clans. They’d sit around a bowl of fruit with sharp knives, peeling the skin off fruit, shaving off fuzz and pulling away rinds. Their chairs would be set out of the way, and they would clutch their sharp knives in their small hands so carefully. Obi-Wan remembers offering plates of cut fruit to healing jedi, their pain easing into the Force at such simple generosity.--On fruit and healing.
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi & Quinlan Vos
Series: 吃飽了嗎? | Have you eaten your fill? [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1832875
Comments: 25
Kudos: 160





	平果 | peace, fruit

**Author's Note:**

> sometimes you are procrastinating on writing a food fic, and so you ask for a prompt for food fics, and then you ignore the prompt to write about fruit instead.
> 
> thanks to ellie, always willing to read my work despite our fandoms never overlapping.
> 
> \--
> 
> 平果 (ping guo) | peace; fruit  
> from a pun off of apple: 蘋果 (ping guo)

Quinlan wakes up in the Halls of Healing to Obi-Wan peeling meiloorun fruit with a vibroknife.

“Are you supposed to be using that here?”

Obi-Wan barely blinks at the rasp, putting down the fruit and knife to pour Quinlan a cup of water from the pitcher. He helps Quinlan sit up as he says, “It wouldn’t be a problem if you didn’t get yourself sent to the Halls.”

“Wasn’t on purpose.” His eyes close as he sinks back down. It was supposed to be a casual jaunt down to the lower levels of Coruscant. Instead, there had been an unlucky shot that passed into his back, just barely missing his kidneys. He was lucky that Luminara was nearby. He nodded at the fruit in Obi-Wan’s hand. “Is that for me?”

“When Bant clears you.” He finishes peeling it; splits it, cores the fruit; lays the pieces out on a plate. “But yes.”

“Always fussing.”

“I wouldn’t if you didn’t get yourself sent to the Halls.”

“And miss you peeling fruit at my bedside?” He cracked an eye open, grinning. “Never.”

Obi-Wan stands, sliding the plate closer—there’s at least three meiloorun fruits worth on it, all peeled and sliced into bite-sized pieces. Obi-Wan’s been sitting at his bedside for a while. “See if I peel fruit for you again.” But the threat is fond. “Get better, Quin.”

* * *

Like all initiates, Obi-Wan learned to peel fruit in the Halls of Healing. They first learned how to use knives in the kitchen, honed their skills in the dojo, but fine control was learned in the Halls of Healing. They’d sit, durasteel knife in one hand, a bowl of fruit between them, learning how to peel the skin and rinds of fruit off. The best initiates could peel the skin off in a thin continuous strip.

As initiates, they would march into the Halls with their clans. They’d sit around a bowl of fruit with sharp knives, peeling the skin off fruit, shaving off fuzz and pulling away rinds. Their chairs would be set out of the way, and they would clutch their sharp knives in their small hands so carefully. Obi-Wan remembers offering plates of cut fruit to healing jedi, their pain easing into the Force at such simple generosity.

There were always jedi in the Halls; healers, the healing, and initiates with their small hands clutching knives. The force could work wonders, but there was still something for bedrest. Jedi would visit their friends, lineages would gather at bedsides, and there would always be a plate of fruit, simple and refreshing: peeled and cut and waiting.

* * *

There are too many wounded, during the war. Too many wounded, and too little time. Too many to sit by each bedside with a bowl of fruit and a knife. Too many to feed.

There is little fresh fruit on board their ships. Fruit can spoil and rot. It is expedient to stock their battleships with processed rations, with nutrient paste, with hardy root vegetables and dried grains that can survive the tumbling maneuvers of battle, and not with delicate fruits that bruise and spoil.

Obi-Wan does not sit beside his men, a bowl of fruit before him, and the meditative act of peeling and slicing fruit in his hands. He checks on his men, sees to what comfort he can offer, ensures that as many of them survive until the next battle. He does not sit beside his men and offer them a plate of fruit, peeled and cored and sliced as an offering and comfort.

But oh, how he thinks about it. He thinks about being an initiate again, those days when the sun shone into the Halls. In the light, everything seemed to glow golden. He remembers those days with the sweetness of childhood: his mind focused on the task of helping, the satisfaction of a job well done. He had been a child, but he offered comfort and saw it accepted.

As a child, he thought that being a padawan, being a knight, being a master, being an adult would allow him to do more. 

He is an adult now. A Master on the Council. A General leading troops to war. And yet as he stands in the medbay of the Negotiator, he is so far from those childhood days, when he was able to offer comfort, and see it accepted.

* * *

Obi-Wan dreams—

He is in the Halls of Healing, and the sun slants through the window to shade the room in gold. There is the soft rasp of a knife cutting through the skin of fruit, and he can smell the citrus in the air. There is a quiet whisper, small giggles of the initiates unable to keep themselves serious and sober. Master Yoda’s presence wends its way through the room, checking in on the healing and the initiates alike. 

A hand touches him on the shoulder, as light as a grain of sand.

There is something sweet in the air: like a plate of fruit that’s been peeled and sliced. When he turns, he can see Quinlan there, but he’s an initiate again, fumbling with the knife in his gloved hands, his future dexterity out of reach. Master Yoda is there, pushing a plate towards him. Master Qui-Gon sits in the corner of his vision, a long thin strip of muja fruit peel coiling before him.

“Rest for now,” a voice whispers, and it sounds like Bant. “Rest and recover.”

He can taste fruit on his tongue, sweet and solid. It fills his mouth as he bites down, and he is swallowing and swallowing and yet it never seems to settle, lodging tight in his throat even as his stomach churns. He can taste it: those halcyon days of the Jedi, and yet—

When he wakes, he is alone.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading, leave a comment if you enjoyed, eat some fruit. :)
> 
> ❤️ Enjoyed it?
> 
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> 



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